McArtor.net

Archive for June, 2005

It was warm again today, but tonight when I left work at 10pm, it was actually somewhat cool outside. Was such a nice feeling. I drove home with the windows down and it felt GREAT!!

Jason filled in at volleyball again tonight and he said they won, so he was happy about that. He even came home and mowed the lawn, so got that done again for another few days. Haven’t had to mow quite as often since we haven’t been getting too much rain lately.

Jason made me go buy a waterproof mattress today to put on the bed in case my water breaks in the middle of the night. I know how much he loves our bed, so guess he doesn’t want to risk me ruining it.

Otherwise, nothing too exciting has been going on here. I work all weekend and on the 4th, so it will be a pretty quiet holiday around here. Might venture out to watch the fireworks if it isn’t too terribly humid out.

Hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday!!

…to Grandpa and Grandma Miller. Wasn’t able to make it back home since Brandy could (or at least she hopes) go into labor at any time. Anyway, it sounded like they had a full house today when I called late in the Cubs game after my short nap—of about 5 minutes, although I layed down for about an hour. Brandy and I are watching The Weakest Link right now on GSN, which is quickly becoming the most-watched network around here with the summer re-run season and they’ve got a “special” on featuring some famous musicians who happen to be about the dumbest collective group I’ve ever seen in one place at the same time.

Well, another weekend almost over. We had a very relaxing few days…didn’t leave the house too much as it is (again!!) SOOO hot outside. We did get some rain Friday night..but it didn’t seem to cool it off any outside.

This morning we went to church in Madrid, IA to celebrate Pastor Marcus’ 25th anniversary of being a pastor. He was our pastor in Ringsted when I was growing up and our families have stayed in touch through the years (he is actually the pastor who married Jason and I). Anyways, it was nice seeing him and his family. Mom and Dad and a few others from Ringsted also made the trip to Madrid, so Ringsted was well represented in the congregation today.

When we got back from Madrid, I took alittle nap and it felt great. When I rolled over, I noticed Jason catching a few Z’s beside me, so we both must have needed a little cat nap. He didn’t sleep near as long as I did…and when I woke up, he was busy making supper….we had bone-in ham, cheesy scalloped potatos and Pillsbury biscuits. It was very yummy….so glad he likes to cook as much as he does or we would be in trouble!!

Tonight we decided to put the stroller together. Wasn’t too difficult, but glad to have it done. I think we pretty much have everything assembled now that we might need shortly after the baby is born. Took a few pics of the assembly process….take a look at the stroller assembly.

Well, off to fold some laundry.

Since recently residing our home (with beautiful vinyl), Brandy and I had an opportunity to learn a lot more about the good and bad of siding than we ever wanted to know. It all started out when we realized the stuff that was on our house when we bought it, which apparently was the “next big thing” about 15 years ago around the time when our house was built, was starting (or was about 5 along) to crap out, take on water, mold, and other fungi. We found out we had some variation of “masonite” siding—not so lovingly referenced by Brandy’s dad, but we’ll keep this post PG, for the most part. Long story short, the stuff was bad news, and if you were, or are a homeowner with this stuff shielding your house, chances are unless you kept a nice thick layer of paint on it, you were probably in bad siding shape as well and had reason to file a claim, in attempt to collect some money, cause eventually you were going to need to reside. We did quite a bit of research and found out there are several different companies that make a similar product, kind of like Coke and Pepsi or McDonald’s and Burger King—there are a bunch of companies that made a similar product and each of them have their own judgement by different judges against them, each with their own “rules” and regulations. The first step is, you have to identify your siding so you know if you have Coke or Pepsi. Then from there you need to contact that company for a claim form, either available as a .pdf download, or as a document the company will mail to you. The entire process takes a while, as in our circumstance, we had to submit a lot of documentation about the house that took some research: i.e. when it was built, who built it, how often painted, etc. We had to go get some “official documents” from our City Hall as well, just to make things a pain. We made quite a few phone calls to the 800 number associated with the claim to make sure we were sending the right stuff as well. All-in-all, by the time we sent our claim—with a 6×6 chunk of the bad stuff I cut off the house, had an inspector out (who was provided by the siding company, by the way—is that fair?) and the information was all processed, it took about 6 months. Anyway, if you know anyone who has masonite siding, let them know that they may be able to get reimbursed for their faulty siding. Oh, one last thing, don’t pay a company to file the claim for you, it is not that difficult, and it’s not worth 30% to have someone fill out the paperwork for you.

Ben and Jacque are on their honeymoon in Jamaica, so Fuzzy needed a guy to fill in on their Thrusday night sand volleyball team. It was pretty hot, but we made it—and won. I need to get a haircut sometime, Brandy said I look like Don King. We’re watching some Win Ben Stein’s Money right now before we go to bed—hopefully some of the knowledge will stick with us.

As I am sure everyone else noticed, it was SO hot outside today. I heard it was the hottest day we have had since summer of 2003!! I didn’t venture out too much…only to get groceries this afternoon with Jason. Didn’t really want to go (as grocery shopping is about my least favorite thing to do), but we went and got the essentials and now our cupboards and stocked again. We had BLT’s for supper and they were good….BLT’s are one of our favorite summer meals.

Jason didn’t have volleyball tonight…his team had a bye…so they got a victory and didn’t even have to show up! He was alittle bummed about not playing..he really enjoys it. But, I think that with this heat, they lucked out getting a bye tonight.

Well, off to bed. More later…

We’ve all had computer problems at one time or another, and sometimes the “help” on the other end of the line is far from helpful, but I actually had a good experience with a company today that sells memory chips for computers, etc. called Lifetime Memory. Only got transferred once and (assuming I don’t jinx my luck with this post) they’re going to fax me the info I need to send in my bad memory so they can test it and replace it. I was surprised how smoothly it went.

….gotta run, the chinese delivery just arrived.

Am sitting down in the sunroom looking some stuff up on the internet and I think we are in for quite a storm….the wind suddenly picked up out of nowhere and now the whole neighborhood is chasing after the recycling they sat out for pickup tomorrow. Jason only had to chase a few houses down, so we are one of the lucky ones!!

Was hot here today…hot enough for me anyways. Never heard if we broke 90 like they were thinking we might, but it sure felt like we did. Jason went out and watered the plants after supper and I am sure they were glad for the water, but think they might be getting even a bigger drink from mother nature here in a few minutes.

Finally got a diaper bag, but now need to figure out what to put in it. I am sure that in a month or so, it will be overflowing. It is pretty roomy, but that just means I will probably fill it up with more stuff than I need. Slowly but surely we are getting everything lined up for “the day” as Jason refers to it. Have been having an interesting time sleeping lately…this morning I was WIDE awake at 4:30AM and it took everything I had not to wake Jason up to keep me company. I just keep wondering if this is God’s way of preparing me for what is to come…..since, as most people know, sleep has always been a precious thing to me.

Well, have some laundry to get folded, so better get that done while I still have some motivation. No rain yet and it looks like the wind has let up alittle bit, so maybe no big storm after all…….

It won’t be long before the “Day” arrives, so I’m taking a moment to post some specifics of the best way to get ahold of us or find us.

Here’s a map to Iowa Methodist Hospital. I’ll keep a permanent link in the sidebar.

We’ll keep everyone posted via this site if anything changes—of course we’ll call our parents too.

Most everyone has used Yahoo Maps or Mapquest when planning out a trip or trying to find that new store out on the west side of town, but if you’ve used either of them very much, you’ll also find that many of the searches are innacurate, or that some of the roads are no longer there, or may be under construction. Well, Google, the internet search king, has entered the ring of mapping technology and I’ve found it to be very impressive in both usability and accuracy. It also offers “satellite view”, kind of an aerial shot, of any address that you key in—which is pretty cool, although my house kind of resembles one of those little Monopoly houses, since you can only zoom so close. Give it a try, I’ve used it for a new “Get Directions” feature on my Chicago golf green fees website, GreatGreenFees.com, so if a golfer doesn’t know where a course is, he can click on a link and it pops up a map of where the course is—I’m not sure how we all ever survived pre-internet.

Happy Father’s Day!